I’ll say this very clearly. If you are still using Internet Explorer, you are an idiot.

Ok that was a little harsh I admit but with that said please go right now and download Firefox if you don’t already have it. Reason being is there is a ton of plugin tools you can use to help your website. One of the biggest tools I use is called SEO for Firefox by Arron Wall over at SEOBook.com. It basically gives you extra stats when you do a search in Google.

Another tool that I use is called Shareaholic. This is how I get indexed with Google so fast. Every time I post a new blog or write a new article or even link to someone I send that page to all the big social networking guys. Google searches these pages constantly and will get routed back to your site putting you on Google radar.

Also let’s say you exchange links with someone. It might take Google some time to crawl their site and recognize your link. To speed up this process submit the page that your link is on through Shareaholic and it should get indexed quickly making that link useful.

So my advice is to download this puppy and start to use it every time you add new content to your website(s). Also below are some more related links about using Google to get traffic to your website:
how to get your website on google
how to make money with google adsense
make money posting links on Google
submit website to google

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I recently attended a webinar about link building with Court and Mark from TheKeywordAcademy.com, which I highly recommend you subscribe to. They had a lot of interesting tips on link building but I have been following them closely and they turned me on, to what I believe and they believe, is the best way to build links to your website.

It’s a website called Unique Article Wizard or UAW for short. You can visit it here http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com.
It’s an article submission service that works by taking an article you’ve written and submitting different versions of it to a ton of article directories.

The way it works is you write an article and then re-write it two more times so that it’s different but says the same thing. They jumble it all  up and submit it so you don’t get penalized for content duplication. By submitting these articles you can add links into a resource box that goes with every articles.

Now here is the cool part. You can have an unlimited amount of different resource boxes. So you could submit the same links with different anchor text.

Now you want to know how you can get 45,000 links in one month right? The potenial is there. If you were to submit one article every day for one month then it’s possible. UAW recommends that you set your submission rate to 50 per day. So if your submitting to 50 directories a day with 30 or so different articles then that’s 1500 submissions per day. Times that by 30 days and it’s 45,000 submissions a month with about 2 links back to your site per submission.

That’s a whole lot, if you can do it. It can be done if you stick to it. Now here’s a little tip you may want to keep in mind. If you site is new then getting this many links this fast can be a bad thing. So if your site is new then I would slow down the submission rate which you can set yourself at UAW.

Hope this helps,  Start Writing!

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Well, the month of December is coming to a close and I am sad to report that I have made only $7.47. That is very very far away from my goal of $100.
So it’s time to recap and learn from our mistakes and our journey. Let’s start by asking ourselves a few questions.

- Where did most of your traffic come from
- What is the ratio to visitors and income earned (just to see)

Right off the bat we could put those two together and realize what went wrong. Just to point out what I did, most of my traffic came from Twitter. I did get a good following through Twitter but I was told that Twitter followers do not convert well through ADsense. I was getting traffic and impressions but no one was clicking. Now I have to ask

-Are Twitter Followers too web savvy? Is that why they don’t click ADsense ads, because most of them have blogs?

That’s a strong two part question with what I’ve been seeing am going to assume that they are too savvy. I have to live with the fact that Twitterers do not click ADsense Ads. Although I have heard that Google searches do (of course).

I will go as far as saying that I did everything I could in one month to boost traffic to my site and try to make that $100. I have learned from my tribulations. I wouldn’t say I learned from mistakes because while trying to challenge myself, I have gained a plethora of new readers, visitors and Twitter followers. I worked hard at achieving that.

Now I know I will have to put way more effort into these areas of my blog to double my income in the month of January

1. I need to build links to my website by linking up to new bloggers and commenting more on other blogs
2. I need to access my keywords and really start spreading around and linking using those keywords
3. Keep using Twitter to make contacts with other bloggers to promote my posts and get my link out there.

Maybe January will be our month. Till next time.

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As we wrap up the end of the year I wanted to take a short look back. I have been blogging for over 4 years now but always for fun and never for success ( I really don’t think people wanted to read my blog about my holiday parties and what I thought about people I knew ) that blog was mostly for my friends, and can be found on my myspace page http://www.myspace.com/rapsmear.

Over the past two years however I have started 2 websites and 3 blogs.
My Websites are:
SwimUniversity.com
PoolPuppy.com

My Blogs are:
DIYPoolCare.com (which is the old SwimUniversity.com Blog I just changed over)
ArrestedDevelopmentblog.com
TheOvernightSite.com (which you’re reading)

These sites are all currently unsuccessful but I’m working on it. It’s a slow process, which brings me to my main focus, the biggest and best traffic tips I’ve learned this year:

It’s a Slow Process

Extremely slow! Which sucks cause I’m one of those folks who needs instant gratification. I have actually recorded a full length album overnight because I wanted it done. But my advice is to stick to it as best you can, it will pay off.

Write Good Content

Really? I didn’t know that? I thought I should write really crappy content that no one will want to read.
I know that’s what you’re thinking because every time I read that tip it’s the same explanation. Well I say “No Shit”, pardon my french.

Get Links!

If there is any tip that is worth mentioning over and over and over again until your brain can think of nothing but link building then so be it. I want you to eat, sleep and dream about building links to your site. You want to be #1, you want to have a successful website, then build links. Think of it as an obsessive collection. The more you have the better you are, the richer you are. Here are some ways to get thinks:

1. Submit to directories (easy and it still works but who knows for how long)

2. Comment on related blogs to your website or blog (comment more on the ones where you can leave your URL)

3. User Twitter, it’s the easiest way to ask for link exchanges. Just say “Hey would anyone like to exchange links.” I usually get at least one every time I do it. Actually I’m going to do it right now as I’m thinking about it.

4. Actually just Tweeting your link gets you links

5. Take the articles or blog posts from your site, re-word them and change the title and send them to ezinearticles.com and add your link at the bottom. This works like gangbusters!

Get on Twitter

If it wasn’t for Twitter this year, I would have no readers. The sole reason my blogs have any following is because I have a following on Twitter.
For example I have a blog about the show Arrested Development. I started a Twitter account called TheBluths and I signed up for TweetBeep.com. Now every time somebody on Twitter mentions “Arrested Development” I get an email and then I follow that person. Then that person sees me as TheBluths and naturally wants to follow me back. Then that person sees that I provide information on the show and joins my blog. Awesome.

So these are the biggest tips I have learned this year. Seriously this is all I do to get traffic to my websites. Please share your biggest web traffic tips that you learned in the following comments. Happy Holidays!

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This is a guest post from Dot Com Dud, a blogger who catalogues his journey towards earning a full-time income online on DotComDud.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.

If you look at my traffic you’ll see that Entrecard is responsible for the majority of the visits my blog gets, so naturally you’d think that I am a huge fan of the service… well you’d be half right.

Entrecard has seen it’s fair share of praises and criticism but as time goes on the arguments seem to be piling up on the negative side. For those who are new to Entrecard, this post aims to introduce you to the service and explain some of the advantages and pitfalls you should be aware of.

What is Entrecard?

The basic premise of the system is this; you install the Entrecard widget on your blog, usually in the sidebar and the widget will display a 125 x 125 ad. Other Entrecard users can ‘drop’ on your widget which will give both you and the dropper 1 Entrecard credit (or EC). You can also go around ‘dropping’ on other blog’s widgets (earning up to 300 EC per day). Once you have accumulated enough credits, you can spend them to have your 125 x 125 image appear on another blog’s widget for a day at a time. The whole thing is simple to set up and easy to use, you’ll be up and running in no time.

The idea is that traffic is generated not only from other blogger’s coming to your site to drop on your widget but also from the readers of other blogs clicking on your 125 x 125 ads. This idea is great in theory but in practice it’s not without it’s problems, when it comes to Entrecard there is both good and bad news.

You Will Get Traffic

This is the good news. Just having the widget present is going to get you some hits, maybe not thousands but traffic you didn’t have before. If you actively drop and advertise then the amount of traffic you’ll get will increase, you can count on that. Still we’re not talking about thousands here (for most blogs) but if you use the service right, getting 100+ visitors a day from Entrecard is possible.

So what about the bad news? Much of the criticism aimed at Entrecard revolves around the actual quality of the traffic rather than the quantity. The fact is that a lot of the traffic you get through Entrecard only come to your site for one reason, to drop & run. This leads to high bounce rates and low conversions, hit & run droppers don’t stick around to read your posts, let alone comment or subscribe.

Is It All Bad?

No, some of the traffic is genuine. If your content is at all interesting then you should get at least some passing comments, maybe even some subscribers. It’s really up to you if the effort in earning credits is worth the results you get but there are some things you can do to improve the situation.

The thing about droppers is that you already know what they want and where their attention will be. I’ve had some success gaining subscribers by giving away EC because it’s much more tempting to win a few thousand EC than dropping for them. Also, by placing things around the widget that you want to draw attention to, you can increase the probability that droppers will be enticed by them.

Is It Worth It?

For new and developing blogs, I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. The amount of effort you put into it is up to you and while you do get more out of Entrecard the more you put in, the return may not be worth the investment. Personally I still display the widget on my blog but I don’t spend much time dropping to earn EC anymore.

However, once your blog is gaining enough traffic from other sources then Entercard might be not worth the effort and eventually it isn’t going to be worth the space it occupies either. These are things you’ll need to address once you’re blog reaches a decent level of traffic though, so you can cross that bridge when you get to it.

To Conclude…

Yes Entrecard will bring you traffic and some of it will be genuine. The rest of it is largely hit & run traffic which you’ll need to get creative with if you want to make them stick around. If you’ve got the space for it out then it’s worth trying out.

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